Meeting the Enemy (51 page)
Authors: Richard van Emden
Living cheek by jowl: British internees had precious little privacy.
Under an agreement brokered with Germany and Britain, the US ambassador was permitted to visit POW camps. James Gerard, the US ambassador in Berlin, talks to British POWs, although the close proximity of German officers invariably stifled prisoners’ free speech.
The ringleaders of the Irish Brigade pose for photographs in their new uniforms adapted with Irish insignia. Only around 50 men volunteered to join the Brigade.
‘Dear Tommy’: a propaganda leaflet dropped over British lines during the Battle of Loos in October 1915. The bullish tone of the leaflet is in marked contrast to the conciliatory nature of the pamphlets the Germans dropped towards the end of the war.
A pencil drawing by Private Herbert Gibson of a German notice board placed in no-man’s-land. The German wording on the board, probably inaccurately transcribed by the artist, boasts of German success at Verdun, including the capture of 228 British officers and 17,370 men.
A remarkable image taken looking out from the German trenches at Beaumont Hamel on the Somme, November 1915. In the distance, around 150 yards away, helmets of British soldiers can be seen looking over the top during a moment of informal fraternisation.
A day after the terrible British casualties suffered on the first day of the Somme Battle. An unarmed British soldier stands just in front of the German trenches at Beaumont Hamel. Permission to call a truce was forbidden by the Divisional Commander but went ahead regardless, as British soldiers crossed no-man’s-land to collect the wounded.
In 1916 Captain Robert Campbell wrote to the Kaiser asking for permission to return home to see his dying mother. Permission was granted on condition that he returned to his POW camp in Germany within two weeks. Campbell kept his word.
April 1916: British and German officers attend the funeral of Captain Wilfred Birt, 9th East Surrey Regiment, at Cologne’s Südfriedhof. Wounded at the Battle of Loos, Birt underwent numerous operations, winning the respect and affection of the German doctors and nurses.
Souvenirs: two postcards taken from the body of a German soldier. The chilling note on the rear of the card explains the circumstances in which they were obtained.
After capture, a German soldier cooperates with British soldiers in an attempt to curry favour and lessen the chances of becoming a victim of summary retribution.
A popular souvenir among British soldiers was the German pickelhaube (helmet). Richard Hawkins in the early 1920s, wearing a pickelhaube that he picked up on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He is also holding a German Luger pistol.
